Types of water

[Jag75]

First off I absolutely no nothing about water science . I used to think that water didn't matter , but now I'm actually starting to see the importance of water for brewing. I usually use bottled spring drinking water or the filtered water from my fridge . My water taste goob and not overly chlorinated. My question is, is there a basic print out of what water profile to use for certain beers ? I've looked around and couldnt find anything . Is bottled drinking water good by itself for any beer ? From what I've read and watched it seems very difficult to understand what does what ect.... is there an easy answer , like water ph for dummies lol. I'm scared to start adding acids and stuff like that . I'm in the process of trying to get a water lab because the water sample port for the water company is right next to my drive way and they check it periodically. If no luck there I might send it in . I've heard that it changes also, so bottled could be more consistent. I'm not able to do RO at this time . Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

A very good place to start is the 'sticky' post in the Brew Science forum titled "A Brewing Water Chemistry Primer". It should be found right near the top of the subjects within this forum.

 

[SanPancho]

Long story short, water is typically talked about being hard or soft. Soft means not alot of dissolved ions. Hard means alot.

Rain/snow based waters are generally soft when they fall in rocky areas like in the west. Wellwater and lakes can be hard as the water picks up ions from the soil, runoff, ag, etc.

If your water is soft, thats great. You generally can add salts to get the profile you want. And the waters ph is easy to adjust as there arent alot of ions to counteract.

Hard water can be a pain. If it has alot of ions they can buffer your attempts to change ph and therefore require heavy adjustment. Also, it may be too high in an ion like sulfate, chloride, etc from the get go. In that case youd need to dilute or purify to remove the extra ions you dont want.

So long story short, purer (softer) water is the easiest as yiu build up the ions to your profile. If your water has too much crap in it already (hard) you gotta purify/dilute down to where you want to be.

 

[mabrungard]

Oh! Don't go thinking that soft water necessarily has low mineral (ion) content. My softened water has a huge amount of ionic content. Hard just means that the water has a high divalent cation content. In potable water, that means high calcium and/or magnesium content.

For the OP, the Water Primer is a decent place to start. Its simple and reasonably effective. However, it requires that you obtain distilled or RO water. If your tap water tastes good, then its worthwhile to find out what the ionic content is via lab testing. Then you have the opportunity to assess if any of the ions in the water are excessive for brewing and how you might modify your water for better brewing.

 

[Jag75]

Thank you guys for the response. Hopefully get a clearer picture of what my water test is. I looked on the website and it has a report but it's almost 2 yrs old . I would think they test at the main sight where the water is held . I will get my water tested here from my tap . But I dont really know what these #'s truly mean . I will do some research and learn more about it . Thank you for the help guys .
Chloride 50.93
Iron 40
Sulfate 102.38
Hardness 90
Sodium 72
Alkalinity 67.77
Boron .17
Calcium 38.29
Mag .23
Ph 8.2

 

[SanPancho]

But id guess your soft-ened water got that high ion level via treatment. If so this would not be a water that one typically finds on its own in a natural state/source.

Trying to give a very basic summation, a mental picture, not definitive by any means. Purposely avoiding topics like carbonate, bicarb, alkalinity, hardnes,etc as those better explained in the primer or via book. Confusing for folks not up on the chemistry. Myself included.

Out here we are lucky enough to have very soft snowmelt based water from granite reservoir so ive never really had to learn too much about those concepts.

Which reiterates my main point, (naturally) soft water is easiest to work with in brewing.

 

[ajdelange]

Hard or soft doesn't refer to the ion content but rather to the content of calcium and magnesium. For example, looking at OP's water he has hardness of 90 presumably ppm as CaCO3. That means 90/50 = 1.8 mEq/L total calcium and magnesium ions. Were the to run that through a typical ion exchange softener it would remove all the calcium and magnesium and replace it, mEq for mEq, with sodium (or sometimes potassium). The hardness would now be 0 but the ion content in units of mEq/L would be the same. Now if he boiled that water some of the calcium would combine with some of the bicarbonate and precipitate. The loss of calcium reduces hardness of course but it also reduces ion content so this water would be less hard (and less alkaline) and have a lower ion content.

 

[Jag75]

Hard or soft doesn't refer to the ion content but rather to the content of calcium and magnesium. For example, looking at OP's water he has hardness of 90 presumably ppm as CaCO3. That means 90/50 = 1.8 mEq/L total calcium and magnesium ions. Were the to run that through a typical ion exchange softener it would remove all the calcium and magnesium and replace it, mEq for mEq, with sodium (or sometimes potassium). The hardness would now be 0 but the ion content in units of mEq/L would be the same. Now if he boiled that water some of the calcium would combine with some of the bicarbonate and precipitate. The loss of calcium reduces hardness of course but it also reduces ion content so this water would be less hard (and less alkaline) and have a lower ion content.

Holy smokes man . Now I really feel dumb lol. That's like some water engineering stuff.

 

[SanPancho]

Holy smokes man . Now I really feel dumb lol. That's like some water engineering stuff.

yeah, exactly. which is why its such a deep dive to get into water chemistry. technically its ca/mg that designate hardness, as pointed out above, but they cant exist in a vacuum, there'll always be a corresponding negative ion like sulfate, chloride, etc. so the gist of what im trying to get across is not 100% accurate by any means, but its what i think is a good "layman's" idea of it- soft water generally has less crap (ca/mg, -ions, etc) in it, which makes it easier to work with for brewing.


but as you can see above, lots of scenarios/combinations that can lay out a unique water profile/situation. the good thing is martin, aj and silvermoney are usually around to bounce questions off of when you get stuck or cant figure something out. and usually you get a few options to work with what you have, from boiling(nearly free) to ion exchange and RO type systems. (more $) those guys can set you on the right track, if that isnt obvious from their responses above.

 

[Jag75]

So it sounds like using bottled or RO water and adding additives is the easiest way to go. I'm gonna do an NEIPA soon so I want to make sure the water is perfect for that style of beer as I read in IPAs it's more important. Thanks all for the help

 

[mabrungard]

Be careful, 'bottled' or 'spring' water may not provide the result you're looking for. If you're looking for a blank slate from which to build your own brewing water profile, you'll want to use either distilled or RO water.

 

[Jag75]

Be careful, 'bottled' or 'spring' water may not provide the result you're looking for. If you're looking for a blank slate from which to build your own brewing water profile, you'll want to use either distilled or RO water.

Is all RO water the same ?

 

[ajdelange]

Yes. It has all been run through an RO machine! But that's where the sameness ends. RO membranes come in grades some of which remove a higher percentage of the entrained ions and some of which remove less. The higher grade membranes tend to remove 98 - 99%. This makes it clear that water will TDS of 400 ppm will come out with about 8 ppm whereas water with starting TDS of 100 ppm will come out at about 2. Thus the properties of RO water depend on the original water and the machine through which it is run. For most cases where the feed water is moderately mineralized the RO mineralization is small enough that we can ignore it which is the same as saying that it is mineral free.

 

[Jag75]

Yes. It has all been run through an RO machine! But that's where the sameness ends. RO membranes come in grades some of which remove a higher percentage of the entrained ions and some of which remove less. The higher grade membranes tend to remove 98 - 99%. This makes it clear that water will TDS of 400 ppm will come out with about 8 ppm whereas water with starting TDS of 100 ppm will come out at about 2. Thus the properties of RO water depend on the original water and the machine through which it is run. For most cases where the feed water is moderately mineralized the RO mineralization is small enough that we can ignore it which is the same as saying that it is mineral free.

So theres no need to test RO water when brewing, and just add the additives to make up the water profile for a specific beer?

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

So theres no need to test RO water when brewing, and just add the additives to make up the water profile for a specific beer?

I would always do a quick check of RO water with a TDS meter. For specifically the case of RO, something on the order of roughly 80%-85% of what you read as ppm TDS will likely be ppm alkalinity. And at some relatively low TDS value even RO waters alkalinity must be both considered and addressed.

 

[ajdelange]

So theres no need to test RO water when brewing, and just add the additives to make up the water profile for a specific beer?

Not if you trust the RO machine. For example if it is one that you have recently installed and checked out. But if it is a machine in a health food store or supermarket you don't know about their maintenance schedule or whether they have dosed in some minerals for taste (which some do) it never hurts to check the TDS or conductivity as was pointed out in No. 15. The higher end machines have a conductivity meter built in making this pretty easy.

 

[Jag75]

What about like Niagara bottled water . Says reverse osmosis on the label? Maybe I'll get a ph and tds meter to check . Dont know hardly anything about this stuff but I find it interesting. Sometimes I see some of your guys post and get intimidated and think screw it, I'll stick to just using water that taste good lol. I do find myself researching more and more .